The Penny Drops
by Dr. Bross
Summary: A failed assassination attempt on an enemy commander sends a soldier on a crash course with the Lazurian National Aquarium and youngest member of Intelligent Defense Systems…
1. Chapter 1: Garland and Lockjoy

- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

-- The Penny Drops

-- Chapter 1: Garland and Lockjoy

I ran as fast as I could through the row of hallowed out buildings. After the meteors fell you could find gutted structures lying around like rocks or dirt. None of these were any different as I rushed past broken beds and top floors that had fallen all the way to the bottom crushing everything inside. I felt lucky that my overcoat didn't catch on anything sharp considering how many sharp objects you could find in rubble. The whole desolate city was just stone barbed wire to anyone not driving tanks or vehicles. Dead ends were an everyday occurrence since there was so much debris piled on top of one another. Somehow I ran six blocks without having to turn around or hurtle over a car husk. The only thing getting in the way of my escape was me, stumbling on little pebbles and tripping over twisted pieces of metal. Of course, doing anything with a broken left arm made everything more difficult. I didn't stop until I got to the corner of Garland and Lockjoy and found a brick wall that looked like it could take a couple bullets before dissolving into dust.

I sat down and dropped my weapon on the ground. It was a reliable little assault rifle I lifted off the corpse of a Lazurian… long ago, I can't exactly remember. I had a couple of magazines and in that respect was swimming in ammo. I also had a revolver given to me because semi-automatics were as good as gold in our unit. The revolver had a pretty big caliber as far as guns went, I remember missing every shot I took the first time I used it. I still wouldn't trust it to any situation except a desperate one, or if I was so close that I couldn't miss. I had one grenade, a knife, and even a proximity mine I lifted off an agent of the Intelligent Defense Systems I was lucky enough to shoot in the head. Basically, I could defend myself pretty well… but none of these things could fix a broken arm or even ease the pain. God my left arm was hurting so badly before… but now I couldn't feel anything. I didn't see any bone sticking out… so there must have been hope for recovery. I got my radio before I could worry anymore on it.

"Relay… Relay… my arm is broke!" I wheezed.

"Calm down, Fencer. I can't hear a damn word you're saying."

I didn't even realize I was shouting, even after running so far. I suppose the gasmask I had on didn't help things either.

"Did you get her?" The guy on the other end of the call asked.

"Negative. My arm is broke!"

"Negative? Look around you! Does it look like I need the military sounding gibberish? Tell me what the hell happened."

"No! She's still alive… and she broke my arm!"

There was a pause, and I could hear gunfire in the distance. I looked up and tried to listen. It was a ways off, but that didn't mean there wasn't someone looking for me. Not after what I did… or tried to do.

"So you found the enemy commander… and you didn't kill her?"

I still couldn't feel anything in my left arm.

"I can't feel anything in my left arm," I told him. "It's bad, isn't it?"

"Focus Fencer! You didn't kill the IDS commander. What happened?"

I remembered ducking through the streets, avoiding Wartanks on the prowl. I even had a close call with an entire recon unit. But there was so much crap I could hide behind. And when I finally reached the IDS makeshift HQ in the middle of a bus depot…

"She looks like she's eight years old!" I said.

My contact on the other end of the radio call took a moment. After a deep sigh he followed up.

"An eight year old broke your arm?" He said flatly.

"I shot her officers near her… then my gun jammed. I went for my knife…"

"How did an eight year old break your arm!?"

I didn't have to see him face to face to know that he was making me out to be the most incompetent man in the world.

"She twisted it the wrong way until it…"

I shook all over. I couldn't help it. I could hear the snapping sound reverberating in my skull. I imagined her grabbing my left arm and then twisting it. The pain was already creeping up but she kept going. She kept going with a curious expression on her face, like she never saw an arm ever go in that direction… and dammed if I ever saw an arm twist like that until today.

"Well… what are you doing now, Fencer?" He was at a loss.

"Running for my life!"

Originally I was trying to put that a different way, but I was getting so angry that I just put the situation straight. I wasn't "doubling back to try again" or "outmaneuvering the enemy for a second strike". I was just running for my life.

"Son of a bitch. What's your problem!?"

"She's like a little kid!"

"She's the goddamn enemy. I don't care if she's a fetus in a jar. She's bombing the hell out of us out here. What-"

I canceled the radio call. Not because I was tired of being chewed out over a situation I barely understood myself, but because I heard shouting off behind me. There was no way it was any of our guys, I was too far behind the IDS lines. It was them. Agents. With their slick black helmets and their shiny P90 submachine guns and their wire thin frames. You would think they were all women the way they jumped about. They were like ninjas. Ninjas with guns and black and blue uniforms. It sounds ridiculous but I didn't know any other way to put it. I didn't waste a second hanging around in their vicinity; I got up, grabbed my weapon, and took off down the street looking for something to hide behind. I wasn't going to hit a damn thing firing off my assault rifle with one hand. There was a strap on it, and I thought about getting it real tight and putting the stock up against my shoulder and trying to fire it off that way. No idea if that was going to work, so I didn't want to bet my life all on a crazy idea.

My radio was beeping by the time I got to Tannenbauer and Coombs, just a block or two away. I tried to concentrate on the large structure in the distance across the river, it was one of the few things that weren't so destroyed it looked like a bad art project.

"Fencer-"

"Can't talk. I'm being followed. I'm heading…"

Then I saw a sign that was as crooked as a pretzel. An explosion had wrapped it around a bent streetlight. I twisted my head to read the faded print.

"I'm heading towards the Lazurian National Aquarium. Get me out of here!"

They were probably shooting at me and I was just too busy talking to notice. I just kept moving towards the Aquarium. I didn't even know Lazuria had an Aquarium. Not that it mattered. I just had to get the hell off the streets before they started bombing down broken blocks or using their Wartanks to bulldoze every cockroach nest that was ever built. Once they got more than foot soldiers mobilized I'd be dodging bullets, tank rounds, anti-air flak and Anti-Tank shells. Usually I wouldn't think an army so petty to waste such heavy armor on infantry or one guy, but IDS wasn't in it for military strategy. They liked tactics that brought seasoned veterans to their knees. Whatever was most horrible. Whatever caused the most carnage, as if meteors wiping out the world wasn't bad enough. No, IDS liked doing whatever it took to drive people insane. And I guess it doesn't hurt if you have bottomless resources, it sure seemed that way.

I made it to the bridge. It was a four lane stone bridge that wasn't so long you couldn't walk across it, but it wasn't so short that it would seem like a great idea. It was stacked deep with broken, decimated vehicles of all sorts, probably there because of all the people who tried to escape the city during the meteor showers. There was even a semi-truck in the middle of the span, jackknifed with the cab dangling out over the brownish, diseased looking river. Tactically it was a waste, you couldn't get tanks across without having to bulldoze the whole thing, and there was enough junk on the roads that trying to get infantry, mechanized, or bike divisions would just be a waste of time. No surprise then that IDS didn't watch it with anything. I used the bridge initially to get to the IDS HQ, and now I was going to use it to get the hell away. All I had to do was roll over a couple hoods and jump in and out the back of a smashed pickup truck. Then I remembered my broken arm. I still couldn't feel anything, but that didn't mean that if I moved fast enough I couldn't do permanent damage to it… assuming it already wasn't a lost cause…

I got down behind a sports car t-boned by a van and looked out across the bridge. It seemed clear and waiting around wasn't going to get me anything but a bunch of pissed off IDS Agents. I moved up to a sedan that somehow still had a window or two intact. My plan was to make one continuous run, no stopping. I even did a little internal count to three. When I stood up a shot broke the window of the car I was hiding behind. Little glass fragments fell on me as I threw myself down again. I didn't even hear it! There wasn't anyone behind me, and there wasn't a quick follow up shot so I just continued to remain still listening hard for anything obvious. Nothing. I already had an idea in my head but I didn't want to face it. Instead I took off my helmet and lifted it into the open and it was almost shot right out of my hands. Goddamn sniper! Who in the hell is watching this bridge? And though they weren't here yet, the IDS Agents weren't going to waste a whole lot of time going to work on me pinned down behind a trashy car. The only thing I had to worry about in this situation was whether I'd be shot by the sniper or a bunch of IDS Agents…

Then, I got a call.

"The one trying to cross the bridge… are you dead yet?"

Without thinking I answered.

"Who the hell are you? Shooting at me?"

"So, you didn't die."

It was a woman on the other end. I held my radio looking down at it. Her voice was familiar. It was Agatha Sickleford. Our sniper. OUR sniper. A sniper on our side! She was supposed to be part of this operation. I can't believe I forgot about her. But once I remembered, I couldn't help but wonder why she was trying to blow my head off.

"Sickleford? Why are you shooting at me!?" I asked.

"I don't remember your name, but I know your voice."

"Why are you shooting at me!?" I asked again with a little more anger behind it this time.

"Everyone is infected with the Creeper. You should see all the Creeper people I spot from my perch here. There's so many of them. Why would you want to cross the bridge anyway? You'd only run into Creeper people in bloom."

Sickleford wasn't known to be a cold fish in the few times I met her. Far as I could tell she was just another lucky survivor. She hated canned bread. Before the meteors she loved cats. She was a solid shot and reasonable. But now she sounded so detached, and bored. She sounded so exhausted. As if talking to me was a chore in itself.

"You're infected with the Creeper." She said after I failed to respond.

"So are you! Why are we even talking about this? Dr. Morris is working-"

"Dr. Morris isn't working on anything but his next stand up routine."

Such a bad goddamn time to go crazy! She had lost it. What… I was five hours out since I crossed this bridge. What happened to her in that little time frame? I suppose waiting in one place, you let your mind wander. And her mind wandered into a dark, lonely corridor where shooting anything that moves sounds like a great idea wind down the day. Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch.

"Sickleford… you have to let me through. There are IDS Agents chasing me."

"Did you kill that little girl?"

"No, I didn't kill the enemy commander. She broke my arm; I'm in lots of pain. I've been through a lot of- I don't need you shooting at me Sickleford!"

I peeked through the broken window of the car door I was behind and almost got my head shot off as she fired at me again. There was the little metallic plink as her bullet hit the frame of the door.

"God dammit! Bitch! You bitch! You stupid bitch!" I yelled.

"Target. You target. You stupid target," she returned. "You failed so who cares what I do to you?"

"I care!" I said, as if my opinions carried any weight when it came to whether I should live or die.

"You're just a man with a gun. I'm a woman with a rifle. And your target is just a little girl with an army looking for you," Her voice trailed off as if she had noticed something interesting. "Oooh."

Her little oooh made me look up to see the IDS Agents coming down the street towards me. They were darting from cover to cover using the demolished buildings. I probably wasn't hard to spot. If they had rifles instead of their compact little submachine gun I wouldn't be looking on them in white faced panic.

"Sickleford!"

"You can try and cross. But I'll shoot at you. It's my bridge."

She turned off her radio and our discussion was over. The IDS Agents were getting closer; they could already start shooting at me if they weren't so meticulous about making every round count. I almost wanted to poke my head out and see just how far I'd have to go with Sickleford shooting at me. But all I could think about what was going to kill me first. A burst of machine gun fire? Or one shot from a high powered rifle?

- Next Chapter: Sickleford's Bridge


	2. Chapter 2: Sickleford's Bridge

- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

-- The Penny Drops

-- Chapter 2: Sickleford's Bridge

I must have gone up and over the hood of the car I was hiding behind with a chorus of curse words flowing out of my mouth. Somehow I came to the conclusion that going against Sickleford was better in the way that if she shot me, death would most likely be instantaneous compared to a raking of automatic fire. When I stood up and threw myself across the hood like an old TV show I heard shots land all around me. The IDS Agents started to fire and Sickleford almost got me in the leg. The car took all the punishment instead while I dashed towards the next functioning piece of cover. It was a pickup truck that had been clipped from behind and cockeyed on the road. It was hard to tell if the IDS Agents wondered why I was taking cover facing their side of the bridge. I'm sure none of them noticed a sniper taking shots at me. At least they didn't until one of their own got shot by Sickleford. I couldn't tell you where it was, but one of them screamed out loud and the others got a lot more selective about taking aim at me. It soon became a strange game of whack-a-mole. I'd pop my head up to see where the next best place would be to hide, they'd pop up to try and shoot me, and all the while Sickleford with her rifle was trying her best to get all of us.

If I could just make it to the goddamn semi-truck I could take a breather from getting sniped at. Then I realized I had no idea where Sickleford was hiding out, or which side of the bridge was facing her. All I knew is that she was on the other side of the river. I managed to duck around a demolished station wagon without getting shot and thought about just crawling under the semi. It was such a good idea if it weren't for my broken arm. Slowly it was beginning to regain feeling, and it was starting to hurt. It ached, but I knew it was going to get a lot worse. But I tried to ignore it right now. I was trying to fire an assault rifle one handed at the IDS Agents to keep them from getting any closer to me. There wasn't any car parked or smashed in front of the jackknifed semi truck and worming my way under it was going to take a bit of time. Time enough for someone to shoot me to death. I suppose Sickleford wasn't totally gone, because she was still shooting at the IDS bastards if only because they moved and presented a viable target. I waited for her to force them back down low and took off towards the truck.

That's when Sickleford shot out one of the tires on the cab hanging over the edge of the bridge. The tire went out with a poof and caused the whole semi to shudder. I almost froze in my tracks as I watched it begin to slide. Losing that tire had screwed with its distribution of weight, and without it the whole thing began to go right off the edge. In a flash the whole cab fell off into the water and took the trailer along with it. The middle of the bridge was now a big open space. How long had she stared at that semi-truck wondering just what it would take in order to send it off the edge? Between going crazy and looking at the people with plants growing out of their bodies, she must have figured it wouldn't take much. And here I was, standing stupid in the middle of the bridge after the biggest piece of cover went sliding off into the green-brown river filled with dead things. My desperate scrambled mind decided that a thin streetlight pole was a good enough substitution to hide from Sickleford.

It turned out that it wasn't.

She quickly shot me in my broken left arm and I screamed. I bet even the IDS Agents heard me cry out through the gasmask and everything. The jolt of pain and the pulsating agony afterwards forced me to dash across to a pickup truck where I leapt in the back and got down flat on my back. Sickleford fired a couple rounds to break the already broken rear window of the truck and also at the tailgate which was thankfully up. I just lay there groaning in-between whimpering and suddenly regretting the return of feeling to my broken arm. It hurt when it moved even the slightest millimeter, and it hurt when it wasn't moving at all. I could only hope that the open space after the semi fell into the river would delay the IDS Agents for a little while. I needed the time to just sit in pain, I couldn't do anything else. And now my arm was bleeding. I couldn't tell if she had hit it right in the middle or just clipped it. All I knew is that I suddenly wanted to crush her skull under a Wartank tread. I wanted to empty an Anti-tank shell into her at point blank range with all the little bloody bits and pieces as revenge confetti.

When I was done running my fantasies through my mind, I realized that I was still laying in the back of a wasted pickup truck on the middle of a bridge with a bunch of people with submachine guns closing in on me. At and the same time a crazy sniper was using anything that moved as target practice. I was desperately trying to remember what kind of rifle she used. The only way I was going to get out of this was timing it when she had to reload. The few seconds it would take her to look away from the scope, locate a new magazine and cock the gun was what I badly needed. I suddenly didn't care about the IDS Agents. All I could think was that I could make it in the short time she wasn't shooting at me. The problem was she had a semi-automatic. None of that bolt action stuff even though there were such soldiers using it only because it was out of necessity. I couldn't remember if there was a significant pause after five rounds or twenty, which sounded like night and day but it was my goddamn arm- I could hardly focus. And how could I tell how many rounds she fired off anyway? I could only really count the ones that landed near me, and the ones that caused the IDS Agents to yell in pain.

I did a sit up and nearly got shot in the process. There was a little from the IDS Agents, and a Sickleford special. I counted it as one. Then, whenever the IDS Agents stopped shooting was another one. Then I realized just how stupid I was trying to guess just how many shots a secluded sniper fired and just went for it. I threw myself out of the pickup truck with a roll and hit the road. I didn't get shot right away so I stood up into a hunched over pose and started to dash towards a van. Didn't stop there and kept going at the far side of the bridge. The abandoned vehicles were thick here, probably at the height of the gridlock before the meteors forced people to get out of their cars and run around in circles like lunatics. Somewhere along the line I dropped my grenade, live, and broke out into a full run. The explosion kicked up all kinds of dust and delivered a long awaited deathblow to any car that got caught up in it. I made it in-between the two buildings that Sickleford was likely using for her snipers nest and found the first hole I could hide in. Some ruined bakery store where I found a backroom and collapsed to the floor. I started to check to see if I had been hit in my last mad dash across the rest of the bridge.

I can't remember how long I combed over my body for little holes where my blood would be leaking from. I even found out that my arm had only been clipped and wasn't bleeding so badly I wouldn't be able to patch it up with a rag or whatever I was going to make a sling out of. There were plenty of dirty aprons to use towards that purpose. Although getting my broken arm into one was a process I never want to do again. I had run for so many blocks where it was just dangling at my side. Any adrenaline that would have let me ignore it was long gone now and I just found a corner and squirmed as the pain locked my entire body up. But it didn't matter, I had made it across a bridge where at least six people were all shooting at me and only got hit once. And even that probably didn't count because it wasn't a full on hit. More like it grazed me. Yeah.

My radio began to beep. It was her. I didn't even have to hear her voice.

"What now, bitch? I'm the freakin' miracle man! The whole damn bridge and you didn't hit me once! They didn't even hit me!"

"How's your arm?" She asked with about as much care as a firing squad asking a condemned man whether he'd like to be shot in the morning or the afternoon.

"You grazed it! Not even a full on hit!"

"It still hurt, didn't it?" She said again.

"Screw you! Go play with your IDS toys!"

"I shot them all. Didn't have enough time to get you."

I felt like congratulating her, even if it was with a bucket of sarcasm. But there would be more IDS guys. They had tanks, dusters, infantry, bike units- I had just jumped one tiny hurdle along a highway of millions.

"You better hope I never run into you, Agatha. I'll empty a whole clip into you. I swear to Brenner."

There was a long pause on her end. I couldn't tell if she had forgotten to end the call or just saw something in the distance worth looking at. Then I heard her rifle click.

"You better hope I never find you, Fencer. That is your name right? I remembered it, a little after you reached the semi."

I turned my radio off and cradled my assault rifle. It occurred to me that she might be lying and the IDS Agents got across the bridge after all. The backroom I was in only had one door, with fairly sturdy walls. I just sat with my back up against one staring at the door with my rifle trained on it. Exhaustion finally kicked in after a day full of running and I could barely keep my eyes open. I was going to fall asleep, but I tried to stay as alert as I could before it happened. I wasn't too far from the Aquarium, which I had to remember was the goal of my little city running. It was a big place, easy to hide in with a big roof for transport copters to land on. Not to mention I had never been myself. I had never been to Lazuria before a couple weeks ago. In the morning… or whenever I woke up, I'd have to get moving again. And probably face whatever else is lurking out there. Sickleford is just one of many…

-Next Chapter: The Lazurian National Aquarium


	3. Chapter 3: Lazurian National Aquarium

- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

-- The Penny Drops

-- Chapter 3: The Lazurian National Aquarium

I got walking as soon as I woke up. There was a small concern for Sickleford in the back of my mind as I moved down the streets but at the same time I knew she had probably moved on after supposedly killing all of those IDS Agents. I guess she really did considering no one visited me in the middle of my sleep and shot me. All it took was a duster anymore. There was a little aerial recon, a quick relay to HQ and your little hiding spot would either be shot to hell or blown to hell. No, she would just be another one out there amongst the ruins along with the IDS forces. The only difference between her and me is that she was on her own side, with a sniper rifle and plenty of ammo. In one way I wanted to meet her again so I could kill her, and another way I never wanted to be shot at by her ever again. It was so… It made me… I was so angry. Why did she have to go crazy over something like the Creeper? Our little outfit wasted an entire town that had gone Creeper crazy and never looked back. Plenty of people were infected but no one was dying right away. You got some random aches here and there, but between all the fighting going on you probably had a better chance to get killed by a bullet than the friggin' virus.

And that's when I started to come across the Creeper people that Sickleford had mentioned earlier. They were all advanced cases, and way past their prime. All of them were just mounds of twisted vines and plants scattered along the streets and found hiding behind shattered foundations and busted cars. I had only really seen the Creeper through photographs, and the Polaroid's didn't disappoint. The Creeper virus grew right out of your body with green vines with sickly looking orange, purple and yellow flowers blooming on top of it. And the flowers weren't even nice to look at. They all looked like little mouths that would bite anything that got too close. All the ones I came across I only glanced at once just so I knew where they were and could avoid them at all costs. Passing through it was easy enough to ignore then forget them in quick succession. But I began to wonder what it was like for Sickleford, having the opportunity of staring at them for hours on end. Watching the little vines worm their way out from underneath some poor bastard's skin and bloom into another nightmarish petal formation.

Lucky for me I could push all of that out of my mind as I reached the large empty parking lot of the Lazurian National Aquarium. I was surprised to find some rusty tanks and recons filling in the massive void, only because they'd never move again. The Aquarium itself reminded me of a Venn diagram. Three wide circles stacked on top of each other in the shape of a "Y". The front entrance was up a big set of steps with the glass doors shattered in seventy places. Even as I stood at the entrance, the awful smell of dead things wafted out into the open. My gasmask only helped deal with the smell only slightly; probably just enough so that I didn't throw up or gag every time I took a breath. No doubt the whole place was just covered with rotting fish of varying sizes and standing water from all the tanks that either burst or managed to hold together. Nothing could have possibly survived in there, and I knew that no one in their right mind was going to find me here unless they were as desperate as I was. There was one more draft of awful decomposing things before I finally committed to going inside.

The entrance lobby did not disappoint. It was decorated with dripping vents, waterlogged pamphlets, and more awful smells. There was a starfish display in the ceiling for visitors to strain their necks looking upwards at when they got caught in a long line. But apparently the shockwaves of the meteor impacts had broken it and all the water that used to be in the tank had already made its way onto the floor. Dead rotting starfish, big and small, were scattered all over. I quickly moved on only to find the main hub that branched off into the other two circles. It reminded me of a mall, only instead of stores there were doors leading to all sorts of displays. I tried to find the one that sounded the least disgusting post-meteor impact destroying tanks and the general neglect causing the filtering systems to shut down permanently. Somehow my brain decided that "Lazuria's Ocean Life" was most promising and I headed through a broken double door.

My boots went splash into ankle high water. And it wasn't the blue kind of water either. It reminded me of the river. Brown, sprinkled with particles of who knows what. I would have been concerned of catching some disease if I wasn't already infected with the Creeper. Nothing could possibly be worse in this place than what I already had. I found that the reason for the flooding was because one of the larger tanks displaying massive schools of fish had shattered right down the middle. This tank acted as a whole wall for the hallway and through the shattered glass was an empty open area filled with fake rocks and rotting plant life. If the lights were on, I probably could have seen the rotting schools of fish too. I continued on, learning that the flooding probably could have been worse if it weren't for a couple huge tanks holding together. These tanks were for dolphins and whales, only that the tanks holding together were seemingly worse than the ones that had broken. The end result was a tank of mirky brown water swirling with skeletons and half rotted mammals. There was even one of those tunnels that ran along the bottom of the tank so you could look up at the once living creatures. Now it looked like a place only second to hell in terms of how inviting it ranked.

The first employees only door I found, I kicked open and entered a small access hall lined with pipes and emergency lights. I had to get up; I had to find some way to the roof. Whether stairs or ladders or I don't care. I was ready to climb the cables of a derelict elevator if it weren't for my broken arm. I ended up finding some high tech monitoring station for a number of the tanks. The equipment that hadn't short circuited or been smashed to hell was on all red. They had plenty of monitors but only one was working, and I was impressed as hell that it was. I suppose in a way the Lazurian National Aquarium was probably equipped in half the spirit that it could go on after a power outage or long term drought. But I bet no one planned it ever having to outlast the end of the world. All the filtering devices for the tanks had died out a long time ago, and the only thing left over now was an aquarium of corpses and a smell of fishy death. I took a seat at a rolling chair next to the monitoring station and turned my radio on.

"Relay. Relay. I made it to the Aquarium." I said while staring at the working monitor. It was concentrated on the central hub and probably one of the few cameras that didn't short circuit.

"Fencer!? What the hell have you been doing all this time?"

"I told you, I was heading towards the Aquarium. I made it."

"Did I give you that order?" He yelled. "Are you crazy? First the sniper, now you! The whole battalion is coming apart!"

"You mean Sickleford. She's shooting everything. She's crazy."

"You mean- she's lost it?"

"Completely. She almost killed me."

"And you're at the Aquarium now?"

"I just said that."

He started to hum, like there was a little factory forming ideas inside his head. I had heard him do it every time he improvised or came up with something. Before I could say anything, he had made a decision. There wasn't going to be any rescue yet.

"IDS is moving towards the Aquarium. They're probably going to make it their new field HQ considering all the ground we gave them."

"What? What did you say," I interrupted. "You've moved back further? How far!?"

"Tannenbauer and Marshall."

I almost dropped my radio. That was too far. There was no way. Not even a Transport Copter was going to make that distance without getting shot at or chased down by a Duster plane. Maybe before when the Aquarium was spitting distance from the dividing line in the city…

"The only way you're going to get out is if you kill the enemy commander." He told me.

"What about Sickleford? There's a whole army plus a crazy sniper after me?"

"You are to kill her too."

"No! This operation is failed. Get me out of here! I'm done!"

"Whose fault is that?"

"No! Bullshit!" I stood up. "You don't kill someone's boss and magically win the war!"

"You're right, but without their commander their lines would have dissolved and we would have easily moved in to secure you. Your only choice is to do the job you either too lazy or incompetent to do the first time. Relay out."

He then cut the call off on me. I didn't even get to tell him that my broken arm was getting worse, that I was hiding out in what might as well have been a house of spoiled fish guts. Not to mention, IDS was coming to me. They were all over, but after my attempt they were sure to have a bulk of forces covering their commander. I went over my equipment again. There was the assault rifle, the revolver anyone would swear you were overcompensating for something for using it, a proximity mine and a knife. The room began to shake which meant only one thing. There were Wartanks approaching. You could feel them a mile away, hear them if you were outside. I had to get to the roof, or some kind of high ground. Then my eyes wandered to the working monitor. There were IDS Agents already in the main hub… securing the building.

- Next Chapter: Stormfront


	4. Chapter 4: Stormfront

- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

-- The Penny Drops

-- Chapter 4: Stormfront

The truth of the matter was that my target, the commander of the IDS forces in this area, was a tiny eight year old girl holding stuffed bears wherever she went. Her name was Penny. She talked to one of the bears. She treated it like it was a person more real than all the troops following her orders. When I located her the first time I hid out under a derelict bus watching her go about her business for half-an-hour. There was an IDS Agent with her who seemed to be her guardian or subordinate or nanny- whatever the hell you would call it. I could have shot the girl seventeen times over from my position under the bus with my rifle. I could have probably even done it with my stupidly powerful revolver. Because they weren't in some fancy building, but under an open air tent that could only stop rain in the lot of a bus depot. I could have rolled my grenade in there and blown them all up. If I moved fast enough, maybe I could have even tossed my knife without saying a word and have been done with everything. But I didn't do any of that. I just watched her move back and forth talking about exploding things, her bear, and about what her daddy liked. All I ended up doing was sneaking closer and closer until someone saw me and forced my hand.

Now here I was again, in the same building she was going to be in. I didn't have to doubt what I was told over the radio. Knowing my luck it was good as certain. I had already left the monitor room and found some stairs that went upward. I wasn't going to do it, there wasn't any point. Even if I managed to kill her, all her soldiers would probably do everything in their power to kill me before their army collapsed. I just kept moving up. The door to the roof had to be at the top of these stairs. I could already picture it. The Aquarium roof was a round flat surface with exhaust pipes and air conditioning units and other things that no longer worked after the meteor showers. I could surely find something to climb down without getting seen. The corner of Tannenbauer and Marshall was far… but I could make it.

When I got to the roof access door I found it locked, I was about to kick it open when I heard rotors. The misshaped door had plenty of cracks to look through and I strained in order to see IDS troops getting dropped onto the roof by Transport Copters. They immediately began to head towards the door I was behind. I wheeled around and doubled back down the stairs taking two at a time and risking slipping up and rolling down so wildly I'd break my neck in the process. The first door I came across I shouldered through it and found myself in a strange room full of unbroken tanks. It was like a hedge maze only with nasty aquarium tanks shaped like Tetris pieces. Some sign barely clinging to the ceiling proclaimed "Lazuria's Maze of the Ocean" in faded white letters. I ran around the sharp corners trying to find another way out when the sound of a door breaking made me stop dead in my tracks. Quickly, voices followed. I held my breath and hunched over readying my assault rifle.

"Stormfront! STORMFRONT!" Someone was shouting at the top of their lungs.

"Affirmative. Commence operation Stormfront." Another, much older voice responded.

Instantly pounding rain began to slam the area. I knew about it because there were some skylights in this room, some still intact while others broken. And water began to flow in through holes in the ceiling. Some of the rain water made its way into the unfiltered, brown muddy aquarium tanks and began to overflow, covering the floor with more water. I had to step more carefully than before just to avoid making splashing sounds with my boots.

"Operation Stormfront is go, sir."

"Pschew! Pschew! Isn't that better Mr. Bear?"

I almost had a heart attack. It was her. It was that goddamned eight year old come back to haunt me. I could only look at my left arm and wince.

"Look at the fishes! They're sleeping! Penny is sleepy."

I didn't move. I just listened to her talk. She rattled off numerous explosion sounds. I had my back to one of the tanks that was overflowing. The water that was now spilling down my back couldn't shake me out of my hysteria.

"Sir, what's your orders to the advancing line?"

"Boom! Mr. Bear wants to see things go boom! Penny is a good girl."

"Yes sir."

The other voice, which had to be the same IDS Agent I saw her with before, always acted like everything coming out of that eight year old girl's mouth was perfectly sane. Somehow that IDS Agent was compatible; somehow everyone under her command was compatible, where crazy nonsense and laser sounds translated to real military tactics. They continued to talk with the IDS Agent bringing up real questions about how they should handle their attack, and that girl answering with gibberish and both of them getting along fine. I suddenly had to see it to believe it. I crept along the tanks winding back and forth until their voices got louder. I put my back up against another aquarium filled with disgustingly black water and peered around the corner.

"Pschew! Pschew!"

There she was with her stuffed little bears looking off into the aquarium tanks full of dead things like there was still fish to see. Her hair was white like a mop with a bow in her hair shaped like a flower. She had strange gold eyes and a stranger outfit that I could only describe as a smock. And even though she had the frame of a little girl she had enough strength to break a damn arm with one hand. She terrified me, and as much as I knew she wasn't some kid running around the streets looking for shelter… I couldn't kill her. I choked the first time, and I was choking right now. The first time we met, I stood right in front of her with my left arm cocked with knife in hand. All I had to do was swing and I'd get her throat so bad she'd never recover. But I didn't. I just stood there. Acting like some idiot held back by a force field if such a thing existed. I'd try to wind up… pause… and try and wind up again. In that time she reached out grabbed my arm and bent it the wrong way snapping it like a thin stick.

"It's Penny's silly friend!"

I snapped out of my daze and realized I had drifted out into the open. The IDS Agent and I both had the same reaction drawing our guns and pointing it at each other. Penny did a little dance and looked to her red bear.

"You're funny, but Mr. Bear doesn't like you. He says you tried to kill Mr. Bear and doesn't like that." She said.

God damn it! Out of the corner of my eyes I tried to see if there were any regulars running in. It might not have mattered, trying to hold my assault rifle with one hand while bracing it against my shoulder still made it shake uncontrollably. I could keep it in a general direction, but I would have been better off with a shotgun. The IDS Agent was rock steady, using two hands and most likely keeping that strange looking submachine gun trained on my head.

"Tee hee hee! You're broken," Penny proclaimed. "You aren't made well!"

Lightning went off and in that second I pulled the trigger along with the IDS Agent. I didn't feel anything, but I nailed the Agent in the shoulder and sent him… or her… or whoever spilling to the ground. The Agent's weapon almost seemed to jump out of the hands and slide across the floor, the water certainly helped. Now I had my gun on Penny, who looked up at me probably trying to figure out what else she could break on my body.

"Bang! Bang! Mr. Bear!" She shouted.

More Lightning, and for some strange reason it was just the crazy little girl and me alone. I played with the trigger on my assault rifle for what felt like hours. I couldn't do it. I lowered my weapon and went to grab the IDS Agent's. Before I could figure out what I was going to do with Penny, the IDS cavalry arrived and started shooting. Aquariums burst everywhere. All the moving around must have reinvigorated the dead fish smell because suddenly it was everywhere and stronger than before. Penny, meanwhile, didn't move an inch as the water fell all around her. She just made occasional glances to her stuffed red bear like he was narrating everything, or giving an important speech why you shouldn't underestimate a man with a broken arm. I was running back towards the stairs where I had come in, only to find three black clad soldiers pouring out of that door too. I fired off my assault rifle in their direction for suppressing fire. I couldn't hit a damn thing anyway. I found another set of stairs in the same area, heading down to a display on Manta Rays with the floor totally covered in water.

It was trying hard to flood, but all the water was going somewhere, and I charged through another employee's only door to access hallways. I took a left at the narrow t-section and charged through everything. I tripped on a broken pipe and went face first into the dirty death-ridden aquarium water. I got back up successfully avoiding to look behind me and kept going until I reached a storage area. Most of it was replacement glass and shelves of cleaning supplies, but at one end was a freight elevator… _with lights on!_ I jammed the button and turned around with my rifle ready. The electric motor was squealing with the sound of a miracle. I must have found the only working elevator on the face of the earth after the meteors fell, and it was about to save my ass. But being out of use for so long made it move like a snail race on flypaper. It was groaning, wheezing, struggling to move. For the longest time, I thought it was going to break down.

I had to get down on one knee to steady my shot as the IDS soldiers caught up. The first one to poke his head out without looking got shot in the legs. I didn't even care about ammunition, I just pray and spray. I had a stolen P90 and a revolver still, and if I had to use either of them I wasn't going to be able to get out of this alive. I just kept shooting until I heard the doors behind me squeal open… and shortly ran out of bullets after that. I fell backwards reached up with my good arm and slammed the button lowest on the control console. I felt my boot get shot as the doors slid closed. There wasn't any pain, and I looked up to desperately inspect my foot. I could see a clear hole though my right boot, but the space was large enough that my foot wasn't hit. If I wiggled my toes, I could see straight through. With this revelation I collapsed back to the floor of the elevator, even if it was wet. All I could hope now, was that there wasn't anyone waiting for me in the… I looked up to see what button I had hit… the basement.

- Next Chapter: Penny's Pineapples


	5. Chapter 5: Penny's Pineapples

- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

-- The Penny Drops

-- Chapter 5: Penny's Pineapples

Before I even reached the basement level, my radio was beeping. Apparently it was waterproof after all. I didn't reach for it right away; I went to my assault rifle, found it had no more ammo and dropped it never to pick it up again. I moved to the P90, which was probably the nicest gun I had ever held since the meteors fell. Even the assault rifle I had before was nicked and worn and probably had a layer of dust I just didn't notice because I thought it was natural. The gun I stole from the IDS Agent was clean to mark all future definitions of clean. The magazine was see through, and I could look in to see that it had only fired one or two shots with at least forty some shots left to go. Good enough for me and by the time I stood up the doors opened into the basement level. There was light down here for whatever reason. IDS had probably hooked up generators for their equipment working off the same circuit. It was really well lit; the whole place was just trashed. Whatever was on the shelves was waterlogged beyond all recognition, organized in rows and columns. I wasn't sure how far back it stretched, but there were double doors leading towards other areas too.

It was about that moment I got tired of hearing my radio beep and finally answered it. I expected it to be Relay, checking up on status. And if it wasn't that there was always the unlikely event it was Sickleford spouting more Creeper depression nonsense. It wasn't either.

"Good day."

It was a voice I never heard before. Calm, intelligent sounding, very in control of things. I tried to think back if there was anyone else on the mission I forgot about. But other than Sickleford, everyone else had been killed.

"Huh? Who is this?"

"My name is Dr. Caulder."

The name didn't ring a bell. I had all sorts of reasons to shout, to hang up, and to brush it off in the situation I was in. Instead I continued to listen.

"Who?"

"My name is a small detail, to be sure. You are trying to kill my daughter."

I slammed my shoulder into a shelf I wasn't paying attention to and nearly fell over. I stared at the radio in disbelief.

"Who the hell is this?"

"I'm running an experiment, and I've heard that you're trying to kill Penny. She's my youngest daughter. However, there have been many reports about you hesitating to do so despite having many opportunities. I find that… fascinating."

Maybe I had been shot in the shootout and now I was losing blood to the point of hallucinating. I felt all over my body, I looked back at my boot. Maybe the round had veered off course and slammed into my knee or something. Maybe my whole leg was just a waterfall of blood and I was just too stupid to notice!

"Your silence tells me you're probably very confused or very angry. I've merely broken into your communications. A simple process I don't have the time to go into detail about."

"My communications?" I repeated dumbly.

"Correct, Mr. Fencer."

I was fine; I hadn't been mortally wounded and didn't notice. But that just made things worse, he said my name. This Caulder guy knew my name!

"How do you know that? How do you know my name?"

"Again, it's a simple explanation. In the advance we acquired many files detailing operations of your division. The highlights get sent to me, I find them interesting to look over. But you are Kyle Fencer. Working in cooperation with a William Heckler, Daniel Palmer, Mai Ruby, Gaston Rickston, Agatha Sickleford, and Albert Victor."

That was everyone.

"Oh… for a minute I was going to say you're psychic." I said weakly.

"Please, don't be absurd. I am a man of Science."

My eyes were on the elevator. It had to be some fancy distraction while guys with RPGs came down to bury me in the basement.

"Where was I? Oh yes. The point, Mr. Fencer, is that despite world civilization being reduced to the ruins around you… you hesitate when it comes to killing children. You don't kill children even though there is no law anymore to convict you. There is no society to condemn you, and considering the state of war the world is in… well, the fact that you don't kill indiscriminately makes me curious. You even wear a gasmask, granting you anonymity. Who would know you were underneath it?"

I don't know why but I felt like I was under a microscope. So what? I didn't kill kids? Even though Caulder said it interested him, it felt more like I listened to some song that was outdated years ago and he pitied me because of it.

"What do you want from me!?"

"Penny is coming down the elevator. She'll be armed, and she'll try to kill you. I wonder how far you'll take your strange moral standpoint. Will you refuse to kill a child even when a child is trying to kill you?"

"You're sending your daughter after me? Alone?"

"That is correct. I'm interested in your reaction."

"What? Why? Who cares!?"

"For research Mr. Fencer! As an old scholar once said; the unexamined life is not worth living. I'm making sure that your life is not a waste. I believe you should be happy."

I looked toward the elevator, it began to squeal and whine again as someone tried to use it. The car disappeared above somewhere. I turned my eyes back on my radio. It couldn't be possible. This Caulder guy wasn't serious… was he? The elevator doors were going to open up and a squad of IDS Agents were going to pop out and shoot at me. It wasn't going to be Penny. It just couldn't be.

"I'm not going to kill some kid! I don't care if she is the commander of an army!" I said.

"Then you will die, Mr. Fencer. That will be most unfortunate for you." Caulder answered calmly, as if he was solving some math problem.

"Shut up!"

If I wasn't wearing my mask I'm pretty sure I would have shot saliva out of my mouth. I began to pace back and forth. All this time Penny was just doing her thing not even aware of me… and even when she was aware of me she looked on without doing anything. I wasn't sure what I was going to do if she suddenly came after me. It seemed so simple after all! Self-defense. You do what you have to in order to stay alive. Where there's life there's hope… Oh god. Oh god. That didn't cover this situation at all. What the hell…

"Penny is coming down, Mr. Fencer. I'm curious how this will turn out."

Caulder ended the call and the elevator was making death noises again. I raised the P90 and pressed it against my shoulder. I wasn't sure how it was going to fire one handed, but it was all I had. Surely those doors were going to open up and four or five IDS soldiers were going to pop out… please let them be IDS soldiers. I chanted that in my brain to the point of almost saying it over and over again aloud. And when the doors finally slid open…

"Mr. Bear loves pineapples! Penny does too! Boom! Mr. Bear wants to give pineapples to Penny's silly friend!"

Penny stepped out, with her goddamn bears in one arm and a bucket full of grenades in the other. She took two big steps out of the elevator and set the bucket down and looked over to me. She grinned.

"No!" I shouted.

I tried to scare her and pulled the trigger on the P90. I was aiming clear above her head, but when I did pull the trigger the gun self-destructed. There was an explosion around the front of the gun and it almost blew my good hand off. I had never seen a security device like it before! I leapt away from the gun waving my hand back and forth like there was a fire to put out and jammed it under my left armpit. Penny giggled, I suppose it must have looked like a crazy little dance how I hopped around hoping to god I still had all my fingers. They hurt but they were all there, but before I could breathe a sigh of relief I heard a click and looked up to see Penny, standing with a live grenade in her hand.

"Boom!" She cried before lobbing the thing in my direction.

I watched the black frag grenade bounce along the floor. It wasn't unlike a rock skipping across a pond. It almost landed at my feet, if I didn't turn and make a mad dash for cover. There were huge packing crates along the sides of the room and I dove behind it as the grenade went off. The obligatory explosion sounded along with metal bouncing off of metal.

"More! Mooore!" Penny shouted.

The revolver and the knife and the proximity mine was all I had on me. I pulled the revolver out and aimed it at her… but I knew I wasn't going to pull the trigger.

"God dammit! Drop the bucket or I'll shoot you in the face! In your face!"

My voice shook and the revolver wobbled in my aching hand. I was no more convincing than a child with a water gun. Penny however, had a bucket full of grenades and wasn't the least bit scared to use them. She got another one out, pulled the pin on it, made an explosion sound effect and sent it sailing through the air over to my box. I kicked the grenade away and got down again as another explosion rocked the room. I realized I had to run again, found the double doors I spotted earlier and barreled through them. This led to a hallway sprinkled with all sorts of knick-knacks I didn't have the time or state of mind to identify.

"Are you still alive, Mr. Fencer?"

Caulder was back on the radio.

"Make her stop!" I pleaded, not knowing why I was still talking to him.

"Only you can do that by killing her."

"Shut up!"

"But it was your objective."

"I said shut up!"

"What if I told you that I could replace my daughter?"

"Shut up!"

"What if I told you that I could just clone another Penny? I could probably even make her better. You have no reason to hold back."

"SHUT UP!"

If he was telling the truth… it meant this whole operation of trying to take out the IDS commander was a bust from the beginning. He would just make another Penny, and she would go on like nothing happened. Even if we repeated this if Penny came back, we used six people, lost five only to take out one little girl. And they were valuable people. I'd almost go as far to say they were good people.

"I'm… I'm not going to do it- just to piss you off!" I told him.

"You are a strange man, Mr. Fencer." Caulder decided.

Finally I had enough of Caulder. I threw the radio on the ground, aimed my revolver at it and blew it into a dozen pieces. I had to get the hell out of here! I wasn't going to shoot some kid. The world had ended and there was hardly anything left, but there was me. I'd never forget it. I'd stand over myself every day and remind myself about it. Dammit… I mean… how hard it is to kill a child anyway? What kind of skill does that take? How does that add anything to someone's character? There's no challenge… Oh god… it's… I can't spend any more time on this. If I knew just who I was going after I would have never gone along with it. How did I get so far in the first place? I don't think Sickleford would have hesitated… anyone else in on the operation wouldn't have either. I just had to run at this point.

There were a lot of locked or jammed doors along the hallway. Anytime I looked back Penny was dashing along with a bucket full of grenades talking to her bear and spouting off explosion sound effects. She just kept doing it over and over again, like her little body was so excited she couldn't express it any other way. Whenever she stopped moving a grenade went flying down the hallway and I pumped my legs faster. I began to wonder, if I got close enough would she still throw a grenade? Was there any idea of self-preservation in her head? The way Caulder talked about cloning her… suppose she was just suicidal? But even if I got that close… all I had to think of was my left arm. She could probably kill me even without the damn grenades. So I kept moving until I reached the end of the hallway. It led to a large room with a high ceiling. There was a forklift parked in the middle of the room. I couldn't see anywhere else to go, and then Penny came in.

"No… stop!" I choked out.

She had a grenade in her hand; the pin was still in it.

"Mr. Bear wants to see you go… Tee hee hee! Pschew!"

I pointed the revolver at her. She didn't care. I was shaking. I didn't know what I was going to do. Suppose I was going to shoot her. I closed my eyes and before I heard her pull the pin I fired my gun.

"No! No! No!"

There was a metallic ping instead of bullet meeting flesh. I heard Penny drop her bucket and when I opened my eyes I saw that her grenades had spilled all over the room. The force of the shot… I must have knocked it out of her hands. We both looked at all the grenades and then looked at each other and then back to the grenades. She forgot about the one in her hand and began to try and scoop them all up.

"Penny loves egg hunts… but Mr. Bear doesn't!"

Mr. Bear… I got a crazy idea. Penny was running around collecting grenades, stacking them up in her arms. I went over and grabbed hold of the red bear she called mister and ripped it out of her hands. Immediately she dropped all the grenades she had collected and put her eyes on me. Her eyes got narrow and her fists were clenched ready to punch through brick walls. She had become cold. She looked like she was going to kill the entire world. I put as much distance between her and me that I possibly could. She was unnerving before. Now she frightened the shit out of me.

"No!" She shrieked. "Mr. Bear doesn't like you at all! He only likes Penny!"

She almost slipped on the grenades. Penny was totally fixated on Mr. Bear and me.

"I don't want to hurt Mr. Bear, or you." I said.

"You're a big stupid liar!"

I used my broken left arm to press Mr. Bear up against my body and used my other arm to point the gun in his direction. I was holding a gun to a stuffed animal.

"You want Mr. Bear? I'll give you Mr. Bear…"

- Next Chapter: Fencer and Mr. Bear


	6. Chapter 6: Fencer and Mr Bear

- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

-- The Penny Drops

-- Chapter 6: Fencer and Mr. Bear

Penny, Mr. Bear, and I rode the longest elevator ride ever back up to the access hallway. She stood in front of me staring at the doors while her disturbing expression reflected off of it. She hadn't changed since I took Mr. Bear out of her hands. Penny had become a quiet, scary little monster who was ready to leap up and rip my throat out with her bare hands. I feared at any moment she was going to turn around and use some sort of martial arts to take her bear back and leave me in a folded bloody clump. Luckily, she didn't. Possibly because I still had my revolver to Mr. Bear's stuffed head. Mr. Bear, however, had been the best hostage I had ever taken in my life. He was quiet, cooperative, generally non-threatening, and didn't even need any sort of restraints. And sometime during that thought I realized I was just as crazy as Sickleford with her sniper rifle. I was holding a stuffed animal hostage in a bid to get out of the Lazurian National Aquarium without getting shot. The only thing going for me was that Penny was completely unhinged. The way I paraded around with Mr. Bear in my clutches made me think I was holding her soul and without it she'd be nothing. She'd do whatever it took to get him back untouched.

"Remember what we agreed on. I get out of here… you get Mr. Bear back."

"Mr. Bear understands." Penny said flatly.

"I don't care about what Mr. Bear gets and doesn't get! I care about what you understand. You're in charge of this god damn army. You keep them under control."

"Mr. Bear understands." She said again in the exact same tone.

The doors slid open and a half-circle of IDS soldiers stood with their weapons trained on us. There was even Penny's IDS Agent there ready with a pistol, along with plenty of bandages over the shoulder. They didn't even lower their guns when they saw Penny step out ahead of me. No, they kept their guns and their attention on me. I moved with baby steps, in slow-mo, controlling my breathing as if a careless gust of wind would collapse this whole place. For awhile, nothing happened.

"Mr. Bear never wants to see the stupid liar ever again. He wants him to go far away. Penny wants Mr. Bear back."

Somehow that translated to making a path for me. The IDS soldiers moved just as fast as I did. Soon we were all taking tiny steps and treating everything like it was the most important thing we've done all day. We might as well been in an aquarium, pushing through water, moving at a snails pace because it physically wasn't possible to go any faster. Meanwhile, Penny watched us. We kept up this entire act until we got back to the front lobby where I came in. One of the IDS guys slipped on a dead starfish. We all paused until he got back up and regained his composure. I couldn't believe it. We got to the parking lot with this little slow step face-off. Going down the steps I caught glimpses of a Wartank, an Anti-Tank division, and parked recons. Any of the soldiers loitering around quickly joined our group, and before long it felt like an entire division had their guns aimed at me creeping along in a perfect little circle. Oh god, I hoped they didn't have snipers. I hoped that even if they did none of them would dare endanger the health of the stuffed bear cradled in my sling. The whole thing… it was unbelievable. I decided that there was a God, and he had one hell of a sense of humor.

"Back off, back up. Don't close in on me, there won't be any circles!" I demanded as we neared the street.

"Penny wants Mr. Bear!"

It was all she had to say to keep them from going off on me. I stopped caring how they managed to interpret her crazy ramblings into orders. All I had to do was get to the road and start moving off into the distance.

"Okay Penny… remember, I get to the corner, well out of view of your guys and I leave Mr. Bear there. You can get him back then."

She said nothing. She just stood there staring pure hate at me. If I didn't think I had gone crazy, I would have said the other bear she was holding was staring at me too. They wanted me to die; they wanted me to die so badly. But I had Mr. Bear, and as far as he went, Mr. Bear was god.

"Mr. Bear never wants to see the stupid liar ever again. And Penny wants Mr. Bear. Go hide."

I took a couple seconds deciding if that was my cue to go and started to walk backwards. The battalion of IDS Agents didn't move, they were letting me get my distance. Even the Wartank, the Anti-tanks had all been shut off. I was amazed how well things were going. Of course, I still had my revolver pointed at Mr. Bear's head while walking backwards. In front of me there was a long line of men with guns and a little girl standing in front of them, and behind me… well, I couldn't really look behind me. I felt if I did, somehow they'd all close the distance in two seconds, jump me, disarm me, and beat me to death. I moved backwards until I was in the middle of a four way and could see out of the corner of my eye that there as nothing but daylight. Penny and her forces was just a spec, and none of them had moved. I set Mr. Bear on the ground and started to run as fast as it took to risk injury. I didn't even care about my left arm anymore.

There was no number of blocks I could keep track of as I ran. And ran and ran. If I didn't see explosions or hear gunshots I kept moving. I believed that I was going so fast that the time any IDS guy saw me I'd be gone and they wouldn't even believe they saw me in the first place. I kept going until I found the tunnel. It was part of a roadway that went under a bunch of collapsed office buildings. I guess tunnel was a bit of a misnomer. It was more like a road going under elevated tracks or something. There was still light, but it was dim and marked by lots of pillars. It probably would have collapsed at any moment, but for now it was holding, and for now it was my stopping point where I could rest. I fell right down in the middle of the road, and crawled over to a car that had wrapped itself around one of the concrete pillars. All I needed was a few minutes and I could start running again. The tunnel was at least one or two miles away from the Aquarium and still too close to Penny for my tastes. I just kept telling myself when I gulped enough oxygen I'd just keep going. I had to get to the corner of Tannenbauer and Marshall. I had to get out of this place. I was so tired and focused on escaping; I almost didn't notice the footsteps.

It sounded like someone treading on gravel. Whoever it was, they must have been hiding behind one of the pillars because they were already half-way through and nearing my end. Only a few cars were crashed along the road and for the most part the tunnel was a straight shot. Not so crazy considering our side had bulldozed the tunnel in order to use it, and when IDS took control they probably did a little bulldozing too. I had a perfect view to watch whoever it was casually walk towards me… with a rifle in hand. I sat up from my slumped exhaustion and saw long hair in the dim light. There was probably more to see, but I already realized who it was.

"Sickleford." I wheezed.

"Fencer." She said, her voice echoing down the tunnel. "Come to hide from the rain too?"

I had forgotten it even rained the first place, but thinking back on it, the entire city was freshly drenched. It was a wonder I didn't slip more on the way over. Not that I cared about that at this moment. I focused on standing up, and gripped my revolver tightly.

"I don't suppose you want to join me and get back to the front line."

"No thank you."

The bridge started flashing back into my mind. Getting shot at, getting clipped, with IDS Agents on my ass to boot. I got angry in a hurry. I remembered wanting to see an Anti-tank round rip through her point blank range and I still did. It all came back. And after everything with Penny! To think she'd still show up and give me shit to deal with. Sickleford wasn't anyone anymore. She was a goddamn pest.

"I just walked away from an IDS command division without firing a shot! You think you can stop me!?" I declared. "Bitch!?"

She shook her head and laughed a bitter laugh.

"You don't understand. When I concentrate on something, I mean really concentrate... It pushes the pain into the back of my head, where I can almost forget about it. When I try to shoot someone with my rifle… I almost can't feel it. The pain fades away."

I was about to mouth off to her again. That's when she stepped into a spot of light. She was about a bus length away, and I could make out all the ugly details. She had blooming Creeper coming out of her. Vines and sickly purple flowers were on her head, seemingly popping out from behind her black hair. There were buds popping out of her sleeves and some trailing from her pants leg. Sickleford wore a sash of Creeper, dotted with buds and bloomers alike. A real big one was sprouting from her neck and forcing its way out of her collar. I could barely make her face out. And through it all she kept a straight face, having momentary spasms of feeling like someone was poking her in the gut. All that hanging off of her… it looked more like camouflage. But I knew better. It must have hurt to breathe.

"So… when you were shooting at me… all your talk… You had to reason taking random shots at people. You still need a reason anymore?"

"Not anymore. No. When I had conversations… the pain used to go away but it doesn't anymore. I shoot so it doesn't hurt. The scope… I focus through it. I almost forget I'm infected."

I could see it. I could see it perfectly. Sickleford probably made the same horrible realization every time she pulled her head away from her scope that she was still infected with the Creeper. The feeling came back, the flowers came back into focus and all she could do was go back to her scope to forget about it again. Maybe she used to justify it thinking about all the pain she'd spare people from if she just shot them in the head.

"I tried pulling them off," She started to ramble. "Now it hurts to pull on them. I pull so hard skin comes off. More Creeper takes their places anyway…"

Suddenly she fired a shot from her rifle. She wasn't even aiming at anything. The round went off and hit a pillar. And even though her body jerked and absorbed the recoil… she didn't seem aware that anything even happened. It scared me though. I could have jumped to the roof of the tunnel and banged my head.

"Please…" I lost my voice. "Let me go."

"No. It hurts. You're right there."

She tried to raise her rifle to peer through the scope. She managed to do it quite well even with all the plants clinging to her. I hadn't managed to move.

"Sickleford… you're sick."

"Fencer, you're sick too."

Amazingly, through sheer will I imagine, she kept that rifle as straight as the first day she mastered long distance shooting. And now she was pointing it at me, only… I wasn't ready to kill her. I wasn't ready to do anything yet.

"Sickleford… wait…" I tried to start again.

She pulled the trigger.

- Next Chapter: Tunnel Vision


	7. Chapter 7: Tunnel Vision

- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

-- The Penny Drops

-- Chapter 7: Tunnel Vision

Sickleford might have had impressive form, but her shot veered off and hit the car wrapped around the support pillar. By then I had the crap scared out of me and the sense knocked tightly back into the hole it belonged and took cover. I opened my revolver and made sure it was fully loaded and snapped it back shut. Sickleford didn't do any sort of plan other than walk towards me. She was right out in the open peering through her scope and hobbling along. Nothing looked wrong with her legs… but given the state of her body it'd have to be a miracle to walk normally. She fired again and again while I stayed out of sight. She fired several times in succession and all managed to land them on target in my direction. I popped out, aimed and promptly missed. It was hard enough to get this gun to hit things when I had two hands. Working it with one hand just turned it into a flashy noise maker. If I had all the ammo in the world, I could have hit something, but Sickleford had an edge since she had a rifle and knew how to use the damn thing. I had a horrible realization that if I wanted to make any shot count I was going to have to get closer to her.

"Sickleford!" I yelled. "Why does it have to be me!?"

"Because you're here."

Another shot hit the car and I scrambled across the tunnel to the support pillars lining the median. I could probably play a ring-around-the-rosie with her assuming she didn't get wise and pull something spectacular. I doubted it in her condition… but at the same time she was in so much pain that anything seemed possible. She had flowers growing out of her and she was still walking around firing off a rifle. I kept dodging her shots while getting closer and closer. My revolver got more and more useful the closer I got, and at the same time Sickleford didn't have to think as hard about getting her shots on target. The moment of truth came when I ran out of pillars to hide behind; several had collapsed and were nothing more than concrete stumps. Sickleford stopped shooting and started to wait me out.

"How long have you been running around like that!?"

"Since the first time we crossed the bridge… it started to bloom almost as soon as we started the operation."

"Wait," I started to think. "You didn't… did you shoot anyone else on our side!?"

I leaned too far out and almost got my shoulder blown out as she fired.

"Heckler. He was bleeding badly anyway."

"The lucky shot at the train station that got Victor?"

She hissed, like someone who had just a door slammed on their hand. I quickly looked to see her holding a hand to her throat. I wanted an answer so badly I forgot to take a shot.

"I did that one. He was so pale… and gaunt."

She fired forcing me back behind the pillar.

"He was fine!" I yelled.

I heard a magazine clatter to the floor and looked to see that Sickleford was reloading her rifle. It was about as good as it was going to get as I pointed my revolver at her and fired. She took the large caliber round to her waist and didn't even flinch. She continued to reload her rifle like nothing had happened. I was so caught off guard that instead of firing again I retreated back behind the pillar. I tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. At first I considered the impossible chance that my revolver had suddenly turned into a peashooter and quickly remembered that Sickleford was a full blown Creeper case. All I could think was the pain- so much pain that trying to shoot people seemed like the only way out. Could it have been that she was hurting so badly from Creeper that she couldn't even feel getting hit by a bullet?

"God dammit." I whispered.

I heard her moving up, she was tired my hiding act. And after seeing her take a near gut shot like a champ I began to panic. I looked over my shoulder as I was running to another pillar. I saw her round the bend, and the place I had hit her Creeper had quickly spilled out. She was firing from the hip now. We were that close. Using a scope just wasn't necessary. Where ever I ran, she followed firing every now and then when it struck her. I wondered if I could just wait for her to run out of ammo. How many rounds could she have anyway? Maybe I could just wait until the Creeper completely overwhelmed her. But how long would that take? She spent the entire operation running around with flowers growing out of her, going crazier and crazier until it came down to chasing me in a tunnel around a pillar like we were playing tag. Then I tripped on some twisted piece of rebar sticking out of the pillar and toppled over into the road. Sickleford rounded the corner and saw me. We both pointed our weapons at each other and pulled the trigger. I missed until I was empty. She took all the time in the world to aim her gun and pulled the trigger.

An empty click echoed through the tunnel. It was the most beautiful sound in the world, and at the same time nearly made my heart stop working. Both of us were empty, and both of us went to reload. The problem was… I had to reload with one hand. I balanced the revolver with the chamber open in-between my legs and brought out a fresh clip. She fished for another magazine strapped somewhere on her uniform, only she had to navigate vines and the Creeper flowers growing out of her body. I didn't look at her anymore as I tried to line up the clip with six bullets with the revolver with six empty holes. It wasn't working. I was trying to put a square in a triangle shaped hole. I fidgeted with it to the point where I thought Sickleford wasn't shooting me so when I got the thing closed she would kill me and have a good laugh. But I finally got it in, closed the chamber and heard the snap of her getting the magazine in place. Before she could cock it I raised my revolver and fired.

I hit Sickleford right in the chest. She made no sound. She stumbled a bit, but seemed unaffected. I fired again, and again, and again, and again, and finally the last shot I had. She still stood. I couldn't see any blood, just Creeper plants. I slowly lowered my gun and watched. After a long time she dropped her rifle and fell to her knees. Her head sagged down and slowly her body toppled over onto her side. The plants covered her face, I couldn't see her expression anymore, and for that I was thankful. I considered poking her, either with my revolver or the rifle she just dropped to make sure she was dead and immediately hated myself for it. How hard was it to see that she was finally done for? I was pretty good about searching corpses for stuff… but not this time. I didn't touch Sickleford's body. I left her there in the tunnel and walked away only to stop three steps later, turn around, and come back. I prefer not to wonder just how long I stood there staring at her dead body. Just somewhere during that time, I heard engines. A vehicle drove up and stopped behind me.

I looked to see a recon truck had arrived, with two men getting out running toward me. They were on our side.

"Hey, it's one of ours!" One of them said.

"Are you okay?" The other asked me.

I didn't answer them. Instead I looked over to Sickleford.

"Oh… ehh… nothing we can do to help her."

I was impressed they could tell through the Creeper vines that it was a woman. I knew of course but... I suppose you could still make out black hair spread out over the ground.

"Hey, are you okay soldier?"

"My arm is broken." I said.

"Good thing you got it in a sling. Let's get him back to HQ."

"How long have you been out here?"

"Just long enough." I told them.

When I got back to base I didn't go to see any medical officers. Instead I went to a lonely tent in the communications division. I had to debrief with Relay. It was just big enough for a table, two chairs and a radio system. There were lots of maps and charts on the table, and it all belonged to Alex Kine. I called him Relay on the radio, because that was the standard operating procedure. He was a rail thin man who wore a long coat and hunched over most of the time like he was trying to hide from the world. He put together the team and the operation that I participated in and was now the sole survivor of. I kind of expected it to be important and hush-hush. But the way the recon team and everyone else at base reacted, no one knew just why I was found so far out. Not that any of that mattered to him, he was very pleased when he stepped inside the tent for some reason.

"I'd have to say Fencer; you've done a great job out there. Things were touch and go for while."

Kine took the chair across from me and folded his hands. He smiled, shuffled some of his papers. I didn't say anything.

"I was concerned for awhile after I lost communication at the Aquarium, but the way the IDS forces reacted… well, I knew you had done it."

"Done it?" I repeated.

"You sounded like you weren't going to kill the IDS commander. Glad you came through when it really mattered."

"What happened with the IDS forces?"

"Well, they were advancing. The Great Owl was dropping its bombs like clockwork and then… suddenly… they all stopped. Things on the IDS side became a mess. They had several divisions of Anti-tanks and Wartanks in the area of the aquarium that would just not move. We were able to take some considerable ground. Even with the Great Owl, it's looking like this fight will be over soon."

He grinned until his teeth showed.

"I didn't kill the IDS commander, Kine. I took her little stuffed bear hostage and tiptoed out of the Aquarium with a million guns on me." I told him flatly.

Kine shifted back in his chair and turned his head like he didn't believe his ears were working properly. He shook his head… several times.

"What?"

"I said I didn't kill a little eight year old girl. It wouldn't have done any good anyway. We were wasting our time."

"Are you telling me she's still out there!?"

"Some guy named Caulder broke into our communications. He practically told me to kill her. Said he'd just clone another Penny, a better Penny."

"Penny? I don't care what her name is! You're telling me you were right there and didn't kill her?"

"It wouldn't have done any good. Does Commander Lin know that?"

Kine wasn't smiling anymore, he was tapping his hands on the table and made that little hum when he was forming a plan.

"Commander Lin doesn't know anything. Why should she? This mission is a total failure, because you couldn't come to terms with the state of things."

"What state would that be, Kine? That it takes seven plus men and women to kill one little girl? She's off her rocker anyway. Penny isn't the problem. You think knocking off one brick from the top will collapse the whole wall? It doesn't work that way. And what the hell do you mean that Commander Lin doesn't know?"

Then I could see it. Only Kine ever talked to us. We never went through anyone else. He was the only one who ever answered our radio calls. Kine was everything but a relay. Everything that reached his ears, all the information that he came across stayed with him. He horded it. He kept it hidden under the ability to act like he was doing his job. We were his special project. I bet anyone lost under his watch could be chalked up to Creeper cases or desertions. I had only figured it out too late, and he could tell.

"What's wrong Fencer? You agreed to all of this. All of you agreed to this. You said you'd do whatever it took. You even used one of your stupid expressions. That'd you'd run down an eighty year old woman and choke her to death if it meant ending all of this," Kine said in a low tone. "Are you telling me that if it was an old woman in command of IDS you would have gone through with it? Is it just my horrible, horrible luck that they had a tiny girl in command over there? And you couldn't do it? Even though the whole world is ended? There isn't a single person left who can stand on the moral high ground. Who cares?"

I was staring at the floor. I wasn't looking at his face. But when he talked I heard Caulder talking. The calm sounding guy over the radio who wanted me to shoot his youngest daughter because I could on the basis that no one would care. I didn't see how it changed anything. Some meteors fall and kill most everyone around and suddenly common sense no longer applies? No, it wasn't my problem that IDS used little girls to do their dirty work and that I didn't want to just nod my head and kill her. I didn't have to play their game. I didn't have to play Kine's game either. And even if I did… Caulder would clone another. I wouldn't be half surprised if I was sent out again, to shoot a whole row of little girls who talk to stuffed bears. I wouldn't be surprised if I spent the rest of my life hunting down little girls and killing them. And it was horrible.

"I could." I answered without thinking.

"Who gives a shit what you think?"

"Commander Lin? Wait till she hears what you've been doing with the men and resources you've sidelined. I'm sure she'll understand."

Kine got white and stood up out of his chair. He clenched his fists together. I knew he spent the majority of his time behind a desk, but I also knew he could fight with the best of them.

"Don't threaten me, Fencer! You see how I recruited all of you? You think I can't do it again? You think I can't find someone to shut you up? Don't even think about. You're lucky I'm a man who sympathizes enough with what you've gone through to let this one slide. Don't go causing trouble, or I'll make you regret it."

He did a little circle in place and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"What are you going to do? Put together another team?" I asked.

"I'll find someone who isn't so goddamn useless," He said. "I have to go to an officers meeting for the counter-attack. You better not still be here when I get back. I better never have to see you again except off in the distance and when we pass by each other."

And with that he huffed out of his tent. I hated Kine, but I didn't believe for a second he couldn't do what he claimed. He could sell all sorts of things. He probably did sell all sorts of things before the meteors fell and he was picked up by Brenner's Wolves. Suicide missions seemed to be his specialty at the point. That's when I pulled out the proximity mine I still had from a dead IDS Agent. I set it on the underside Kine's table and turned it on. There was an initial beep to notify that it had been armed but after that… well, he wouldn't know it was there until it did its job. An explosion in camp wasn't so unusual that anyone would spend more than five seconds thinking about it. I couldn't do what Kine asked me, but I did manage to bring something back for him. I had a mine. I had a mine for Kine. I left the tent and started off towards medical to see if they could do something about my arm. Hopefully, it would be able to heal.

- End of Story

-- Thanks for reading!


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